Umeboshi Paste

Quick Overview

A citric acid sour condiment of pickled, pureed umeboshi plums. Replaces butter and salt for the best corn-on-the-cob imaginable. Use in making sushi, dips, sauces, salad dressing, and for seasoning vegetables. Promotes healthy appetite and digestion.

Details

Eden Umeboshi Paste is made by pickling, drying unripe green plums Prunus mume in a series of steps with sea salt and red shiso (beefsteak) leaves over several weeks. They are then aged for up to one year in wooden kegs. Each wooden keg contains as much as 5,000 pounds of plums, under pressure applied from a wooden lid weighted with stones. During the pickling process some of the plums are crushed under this tremendous pressure, especially those toward the bottom of the kegs. These crushed plums cannot be sold as whole umeboshi plums. Eden Umeboshi Paste is made from these crushed plums. The pits are removed and pulp is simply mashed into a paste.

Unlike commercial umeboshi paste, Eden Umeboshi Paste is completely natural and made using only ancient traditional methods of fermentation. Its pinkish-red color comes from the red shiso leaves that are added to the pickling brine. It contains no artificial red dye, preservatives or flavorings.

Like whole umeboshi plums, pickled umeboshi paste has been highly valued in the Orient as a digestive aid and for its ability to stimulate healthy appetite. Pickled plum paste, like the whole pickled plum, is believed to help the body maintain a healthy acid/alkaline balance.

Use Eden Umeboshi Paste to make sushi and rice balls, and to make a wide variety of delicious dips, salsa, sauces, salad dressings and seasoned vegetable dishes. Makes great tofu ricotta and imparts a delicious tomato-like flavor to soups and tomato-free pasta sauces. Better than salt and butter on sweet corn. Because it is a concentrated paste, it tends to be more salty than the whole plums. A smaller amount can be used when seasoning food and eliminate or reduce other sources of sodium in recipes.